Abstract
Urban seismology has gained scientific interest with the development of seismic ambient noise monitoring techniques and also for being a useful tool to connect society with the Earth sciences. The interpretation of the sources of seismic records generated by sporting events, traffic, or huge agglomerations arouses the population’s curiosity and opens up a range of possibilities for new applications of seismology, especially in the area of urban monitoring. In this contribution, we present the analysis of seismic records from a station in the city of Brasilia during unusual episodes of silencing and noisy periods. Usually, cultural noise is observed in high-fequency bands. We showed in our analysis that cultural noise can also be observed in the low-frequency band, when high-frequency signal is attenuated. As examples of noisy periods, we have that of the Soccer World Cup in Brazil in 2014, where changes in noise are related to celebrations of goals and the party held by FIFA in the city, and the political manifestations in the period of the Impeachment trial in 2016, which reached the concentration of about 300,000 protesters. The two most characteristic periods of seismic silence have been the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the trucker strike that occurred across the country in 2018, both drastically reducing the movement of people in the city.
Highlights
Seismometers are traditionally installed for earthquake monitoring
We assessed the seismic records from a broad-band station during remarkable events in Brasilia, Brazil, to delineate and characterize urban seismic sources in two different situations: big crowds of people agglomeration and unusual occurrences of an absence of anthropogenic noise
Our results demonstrate that the use of a single station, distant from the noise sources, allows to detect the changes in the seismic noise, but that it is not the ideal condition to carry out an efficient monitoring of urban activity
Summary
OPEN ACCESS Citation: Maciel STR, Rocha MP, Schimmel M (2021) Urban seismic monitoring in Brasılia, Brazil. Urban seismology has gained scientific interest with the development of seismic ambient noise monitoring techniques and for being a useful tool to connect society with the Earth sciences. The interpretation of the sources of seismic records generated by sporting events, traffic, or huge agglomerations arouses the population’s curiosity and opens up a range of possibilities for new applications of seismology, especially in the area of urban monitoring. In this contribution, we present the analysis of seismic records from a station in the city of Brasilia during unusual episodes of silencing and noisy periods.
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